Taming Strange. Or: How I learned to stop worrying and make love in public

Grasping Hoof the Dean of Royal Canterlot University, had spent all morning barking orders to movers to be careful with his little angels possessions, or he'd have their heads. It never once occurred to them that he was surrounded by twenty big burly earth ponies, as he was accustomed to being obeyed. The only reason they didn't explain to him the value of being polite with their hooves was because they knew they were over charging him by an order of magnitude. So they all gritted their teeth and bore the abuse.

Picturesque spent the morning watching them strip her home worriedly. She didn't care about the trinkets and baubles they were loading into carts. She only cared about one thing of her's, her lover. She paced the floor nervously. What if he couldn't convince him. What if he wasn't allowed into the restaurant. Would she be able to bear the loss of her dear father if she had to choose.

After a full morning and most of an afternoon of agony finally her father came in sweating and exhausted. "Supervising is hungry work my dear. Let's get something to eat huh. Where would you like to go. Oh! How about that nice Neighpon place on the corner. I do so love that trick with the onion volcano." He prattled on.

Picturesque saw her opportunity. "Well mon pére, since I am returning to Prançe, why not La Calembour de Cheval dans Prançe?" Grasping Hoof was unsure. That was the second most exclusive restaurant in Canterlot. The waiting list was outrageous year round, plus he'd heard the princess would be dining there that evening. He could pull strings sure, but this would be a stretch even for him. But if his little filly wanted it, she got it. He nodded and the two entered the Dean's excessively lavish carriage.

They stepped out at the restaurant and both looked uncertain. Picturesque stealthily looked around for her lover, and Grasping Hoof looked uncertainly at the ornate facade of the building, and at the royal guards standing post at the door. Yes the princess herself was there. Maybe he could use this to his advantage he thought suddenly. The princess was his direct superior after all. He glanced down at his little filly who smiled cheerily, though falsely, up at him.

They entered the building and Grasping Hoof breasted up to the host's podium trying to look as important as he possibly could. Tahe host, a fresh faced, though impeccably groomed stallion, greeted them in the language of Prançe. Grasping Hoof rolled his eyes, He could not speak a word of the language and barely understood enough to get the gist of what was ever being said. "Picturesque translate for me please."

Picturesque's eyes lit up. She couldn't believe her luck. "Oi mon pére." She cheerily chirped as she approached the podium.

He blustered in his most authoritative voice. "I am Grasping Hoof, Dean of the princess' private University."

She said in the language of Prançe. " I call myself Picturesque, and I am in desperate need of your help.

The host looked in astonishment between the two ponies. He understood Equestrian common perfectly but it was the policy of the restaurant to speak in the language of Prançe.

The Dean took the host's confusion as a good sign and continued. "Now my little filly here misses her native cuisine and this is the best place in town to get it. Now we will be seated immediately, or I'll march right over there to the princess, my boss, and you'll have to explain why the Dean of her private University can't get a table."

Picturesque "translated." "I have been presented a terrible choice between staying in Canterlot with my beloved or being sent to Maresailles in accordance with the wishes of my parents." She tilted her head at her father who was sucking his distended gut into his chest.

"Now my beloved is an excellent speaker and will convince my father to allow me to stay, but we must get the two together, and this restaurant is the place we have arranged to do so. Now I can tell by your accent you are a native of Gaconeigh, the home region of me and my mother so you know the value of romance." She pointed to the princess who was visible from the podium. "So I beg you in the name of the princess, please give us a table for three that I may not have to be separated from the ponies I love."

The host had tears in his eyes as he nodded. It was his first day on the job, and this could easily get him fired, but there is no higher calling in life for a pony from Prançe than love.
The Dean saw the tears in his eyes and thought he was so scared of him that he was going to do whatever he said. He chuckled to himself under his breath.

He cleared out a table for three within sight of the princess and whispered. "Bonne chance." To Picturesque as he exited. The Dean stopped him with his magic and placed a one hundred bit coin into his pocket.

Picturesque whispered back. "Ce sera un poney de terre brun foncé avec une crinière et une queue grises. Merci."

The Dean wondered about the extra seat but decided he was lucky to have gotten a table and looked through the menu as if he could understand a single word written on its pages. Picturesque kept glancing at the clock and swirled her wine nervously. They'd been seated a full fifteen minutes before five so all she could do was sit there and suffer.

At the appointed time the host heard a hard voice arguing with the guards posted outside and saw a sullen faced, bandage bedecked pony arguing with the guards who denied him entrance. He dashed out to greet him and patted him on the back as he brought him inside. He whispered. "Votre amant et son père sont déjà là. Bonne chance!"

Haycartes only lost a moment with surprise before responding. "Bless you sir." It was the turn of the host to be taken aback. He hadn't expected this very odd pony to respond in the common speech. A pony in love with that beautiful mare from Prançe must surely speak in her language whenever possible. Haycartes trotted off and the host followed him with his eyes. That angel, in love with this sullen, dour, Equestrian common speaking thing? "Tel est l'amour." He sighed to himself resuming his post.

Haycartes trotted up to the two and sat down without speaking. Grasping Hoof coughed up a swig of excellent wine at the sight. "Haycartes! What the Discord are you doing here?" He wiped the wine from his muzzle on his immaculately white sleeve instead of on the table linens like a sensible pony would.

"I'm here to discuss your daughter's education." He said flatly.

"Ah yes, so you got the news." He grinned maliciously. "Yes my dear daughter has decided to seek her education in her homeland. Isn't that right my dear."

Picturesque looked at her father in horror. She was witnessing her father lying for the first time, and it horrified her. She looked at her beloved in desperation. She knew he knew the truth but it was agonizing to be accused of such treachery.

Haycartes could've handled this argument in his sleep. Picturesque is an adult and can be educated wherever she pleased, and if her father refused to pay for it that was his decision. They'd figure it out together. He was about to explain so, but then he caught sight of the face of desperation on his lover's face.

They'd gotten past the phase of his brain breaking when he looked at her, but this was different. He still remembered the attack yesterday and fight or flight syndrome stopped his mental gears stock still. The thinky talky part of his brain panicked trying to get his mouth working again, but the cognitive dissonance of the two forces caused him to sit there, teeth clenched and spluttering.

When Haycartes didn't immediately blow up, he knew. He'd won. It was the most delicious victory he'd ever achieved. He relaxed back in his seat for some long overdue gloating. "Yes as you can see, my little filly has simply made the best choice for herself. To be away from an upstart like you! She's going to Maresailles, to be amongst cultured well behaved ponies, who know TO LISTEN TO THEIR BETTERS AND TO DO AS THEY ARE TOLD!"

Grasping Hoof was gloating so loud that the princess herself could hear, and was considering sending someone to tell him to politely shut the tartarus up. Haycartes ground his teeth, he was in mental agony, every synapse was trying to scream over each other that he needed to do something and thereby prevented him from doing anything.

Picturesque could only watch as the father she thought so highly of proved himself to be a terribly odious pony, and the stallion she loved seemed to have lost his fiery spirit. She was heartbroken. The two stallions she loved the most were both failing her at the most crucial moment. Her head sank and her wings drooped. Her father didn't notice in his self felating ramble, but Haycartes noticed. He saw everything. He saw the terrible thought written by her body language. "He doesn't really love me." This could not stand.

Her despair gave him new will to rebel against mental stagnation. By sheer force of will he forced the gears in his mind to move. Finally a single thought came to his mind. It was hazy at first but as his mind kept moving he saw it more and more clearly. It was the inside of a pub, all his friends were there, the friends he'd made over two semesters of University. The friends that had given the best year of his life.

One had his pint raised. He said something that Roané couldn't understand. The thought became more clear and he saw it was "Wordsmith! Dear old Wordsmith.'' He'd have to apologize for striking him later. Then the mental image turned and he saw. "Celestia! Do I really look that haggard? I need to be groomed."

His memory became crystal clear. He saw himself stand up and raise his pint. "Gentlecolts! I'm Going To STICK. MY. DICK. IN. IT!" Finally his mental gridlock was gone, instead there was a Zen calm and a single minded focus. He knew what he had to do. He stood up quickly but calmly.

Grasping Hoof was startled and his line about how much more clever he is was interrupted. The Dean chuckled to himself thinking the Demon was going to run out of the restaurant in tears. You almost have to feel bad for the stupid stupid pony. Picturesque had no clue what was going on. She watched in silent awe as Haycartes walked silently to her side of the table and stood her up.

Grasping Hoof was too elated from victory to process what was going on. Haycartes gently but firmly pressed his beloved's head down on the table and lifted her plot. He unsheathed himself and rubbed his stallionhood against her marehood a few times eliciting an audible squeak from Picturesque. The firm but gentle hoof didn't move. The squeak had brought the Dean's mind back to reality but he was too horrified to move at the thought. "HE WOULDN'T." He did.

In front of the most elite ponies in Canterlot. In front of the princess herself. In a crowded restaurant. IN FRONT OF HER FATHER. He entered her. He slid himself in. He inserted himself all the way to the base and began making love to her. Grasping Hoof spluttered and started to scramble up from his seat. He had no idea what he, a pony well over the hill, could do against him, a pony in his prime, but it's just what somepony does when somepony is taking advantage of their daughter.

He was about to strike when one word escaped Picturesque's throat. It was the most passionate thing she had ever said, and she said it in the common speech. She shouted. "YES!" Grasping Hoof took a step back in horror. She shouted it again and again and again. Louder and louder as she was ravaged from behind.

The Dean knew in an instant that Haycartes had won. He couldn't say it wasn't consensual. He had the most elite ponies of Canterlot and the princess herself as witnesses that she chose him. He had lost. He had lost everything. Everything that mattered to him. His pride, his ego, and the only pony it could be genuinely said he loved. They were all gone. Because of him. That demon had taken everything from him. He was a broken stallion. He walked blank faced and silent out of the restaurant.

The two lover's didn't notice him leave. They were too focused on each other. Somewhere in the back of Haycartes' mind he thought he'd have to apologize to Wordsmith. This really was terribly pleasant. Picturesque was on cloud nine. It was the most passionate thing she'd ever experienced. The other ponies in the restaurant stared as one stares at a train wreck.

One of the princess' guards moved to stop them but a large white wing shot out to stop him. Celestia, in her centuries of life, had passed through the various stages of perversion. She'd long ago lost interest in juvenile voyeurism, but it was sometimes nice to revisit nostalgia. She had long since learned the Royal art of seeing with her eyes closed, and sipped her tea gently to cover her biting her lip. The faintest trail of drool trailing down her muzzle went unobserved.

The two made love like wild animals unhindered until Haycartes finished inside of her with a loud groan of ecstacy, made odd sounding out of his hard gravelly voice. The princess guards took both parties into custody.

Haycartes was placed in a cell then immediately taken back out of it and transferred to the infirmary. His injuries from the previous night had caught up with him, but he felt no pain. He lay leaned back with his hooves crossed behind his head, a shit eating grin smeared across his face. It had been a very good day for him.

Picturesque spent the night in a cell. For the second time in her life, she cried all night. She had made her choice. She loved Haycartes and had enjoyed what he'd done, but oh what a terrible cost. "Au revior mon pére." She said as she wept. Despite seeing him for the scheming, lying, conniving, gloating pony that he was, her gentle nature still caused her to love him. Poor pony.